


Though He Were Dead

by Medie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-09
Updated: 2010-02-09
Packaged: 2017-10-07 03:32:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She doesn't know where he came from (well, she knows where he came <i>from</i>, just not how he got <i>here</i>) but that's okay. She's not sure where she came from either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Though He Were Dead

**Author's Note:**

> so [](http://oxoniensis.livejournal.com/profile)[**oxoniensis**](http://oxoniensis.livejournal.com/) held a [Fandom Free For All](http://oxoniensis.livejournal.com/422866.html) and I collected a lot of prompts to write. Er, oops? This one is for [](http://cidercupcakes.livejournal.com/profile)[**cidercupcakes**](http://cidercupcakes.livejournal.com/) who wanted: _ Mary fic, featuring Mary as anything besides the Martyred Winchester. Gen about hunting with her parents, porn about her and John, porn about her and Castiel, porn about her and Ellen, how the Colt got back to Elkins after "In The Beginning", whatever, just something that lets Mary be someone besides the Tragic Sexless Mother._ Not so much with the porn, alas, (but we can infer from certain constant presences, that sex _happened_. *G*)

-

Mary curls her hands around her legs, fingers wrapped tight around her own ankles, and rests her chin on one knee. She doesn't look at him, standing in the corner, forehead wrinkled in a perpetual frown, but she sees him nonetheless. She doesn't know where he came from (well, she knows where he came _from_, just not how he got _here_) but that's okay. She's not sure where she came from either.

She can't remember how to laugh. If she could, she'd laugh now. Not sure where she came from, forget that, she's not even sure she's _here_. Nothing feels real yet. Everything's pale, shadowed, and not quite _there_.

Her fingers dig into her skin, the bite of pain a faint attempt at reassurance, and she sighs. Air passes up out of her lungs, over her lips, whispering out into the night. She feels like a ghost. Insubstantial, like a strong wind could blow her away.

"You're not supposed to be here," she guesses.

A soft puff of breath. He's amused, maybe, she thinks. She never can read them. She's not sure they can read themselves. Emotion is as foreign as the skin they cloak themselves in.

"I'm not supposed to be anywhere," he says. Something that might be annoyance threads through the syllables.

Mary looks up at him. Her lips sweep upward in a smile. "Neither am I."

*

Her sons pulled her husband out of hell. She doesn't know how she knows this. She doesn't remember any of the details, but she _knows_. She can see it in a hazy, dreamlike way. It's a knowledge that lies beneath her skin like secrets she'll never share. She remembers a diary, a journal, pen scratching over paper, documenting nightmares like truths.

Her _boys_. Hell. Oh _John_. She presses her face into a pillow and screams.

*

He pulled her son out of hell. She knows that too. She can see him, if she looks at him right, fire and fury, sword cutting a swath through the black.

She wakes up with her son's agony a shriek on her lips.

*

She's not sure who it was that set hands to her. She doesn't know where they pulled her from. There's just then, now, and a blank space where death is supposed to be. She pushes at it, but it pushes back, and she thinks she's not supposed to remember.

When she walks outside, looking up at the dawn, pollution makes her choke and everything seems just a little too gray.

Mary wonders if it's possible to miss something you can't remember. Suspects that its probably a mercy that she doesn't.

*

He's still there when she goes back inside. He watches her with those careful eyes. "You need to keep moving."

Her fingers itch. "I need more than that."

*

She can see them now. Not like _before_. When it was suspicion that drove her forward. She walks through the crowd, sees them lurking around the edges. Spies one settled in a man's chest, clawed fingers curled tight around his heart, another sitting on a woman's shoulders, gripping her skull, and the pain of their misery nearly drives her to her knees.

"Is this how it is?" she asks. "For you?"

"Worse," he says, after a time. "They were my siblings."

One snarls his name as they pass, clawed hand swiping at his cheek.

Mary sees blood. She closes her eyes.

*

"I don't want this for them," she says in the dark.

"Neither did He."

She rolls over. If misery loves company, then why is she here?

*

Mary watches the news. He sits at her side, eating an Egg McMuffin. She looks at her own. Knows she needs to eat.

She puts it aside. She has more important things on her mind.

*

"You swore you'd never do this again," he says when she explains.

He's sitting on the end of the bed, his coat neutral against the wild paisley of the sheet beneath it, and she has to fight the urge to laugh. He looks _ridiculous_.

"I swore a lot of things." She closes her eyes, sees her boys, remembers the feeling of demonic lips against her own and her stomach lurches. "Wait here."

*

She bumps into a woman and her daughter. The apologies come easily to her lips. The woman didn't even notice the moment her wallet slipped free of her purse. Probably won't even realize it was stolen.

Mary curls her fingers around the leather and disappears into the crowd.

*

"The card has a chip. It's useless if you don't have the pin."

Mary looks at him. He's standing in a doorway, rumpled coat slick with the rain, and she thinks he might be smiling. "Speaking from experience?"

If it's a smile, she's still not sure, it dims at that. "Not mine."

She bites her lip. She knows whose.

The card's useless. She puts it back, ignores the family photos, and takes the cash instead. She ducks back to a store. She remembers the woman coming out of it. "I think someone lost this," she says, and puts it on the counter.

*

It's three more tries before she gets one without a chip. She doesn't waste time.

*

She lays out her purchases on the bed. Hand gun. Rifle. Shotgun. A smattering of knives, bullets, flares. She'll need more, but this is a start.

Mary picks up the handgun, levels it, and sights. She purses her lips, thoughtful, then puts it down again. "I'll need practice."

"No, you won't," he says.

*

She cleans the guns, the knives, and considers the matter of transportation.

"We have a car," he says. "Someone is ready to give it to you."

Mary raises her eyebrows. "Just like that? They help just like that?"

He nods. No explanations. No patronizing reminders that not everyone hunts.

She's grateful.

*

The car belongs to an old man. He looks at her with familiar eyes. It's a look she sees in every mirror.

He makes her coffee. Doesn't offer anything to him. With a grin, the old man sits down. "His kind don't drink coffee."

Mary hides a smile behind the chipped ceramic of her mug. "He does." At the old man's surprise, she shrugs easily. "I'm a bad influence."

"No," Castiel says, "you're not."

*

The car is old, but it runs. She spends a day getting it ready. Using all the little hideyholes their benefactor pointed out to slip weapons, supplies, and all the rest out of sight.

When she's done, Mary falls into bed. She's going to need it.

*

She wakes up, heart pounding in her ears, and looks for him. His hand settles on hers. He's never far.

"Why am I here?" she asks.

He smiles. Really. It's as reassuring as, she guess, he wants it to be, but it makes her question too. Mary can't help wondering about the man he wears, even though she doesn't ask (Dear Abby, there's this angel and - ) she can't stop. She knows it's complicated. Knows that not all of them need to do it.

She sees them when she walks the streets too. Some of them submerged in human flesh, others transmuted their own into a pale imitation of the truth, all of them shining in their way.

Fingers curl around hers, warm and alive, _human_. "Because you should be."


End file.
